This work is based on the quiet scenery of a tea garden encountered on the way to a tearoom. Traditionally, the tea garden serves as a transitional space—a place where one leaves behind the noise of everyday life and prepares the mind before entering the tearoom. In this painting, a human-shaped area of negative space appears almost like a ma, an interval or opening through which another world might emerge. Yet the surrounding surface is not entirely calm. Short, raised brushstrokes create a restless texture, while blues, reds, and pinks interact through contrasting colors. Rather than representing harmony itself, the painting captures a moment of inner conflict, when the mind is still trying to regain balance. I wanted to express the subtle turbulence that exists just before the mind settles into stillness, while also reflecting the uneasy pulse of contemporary reality.

Japanese Garden and Shinto — Returning to One’s True Self and Attuning to the Presence of the World

On one occasion, I had the opportunity to take part in a tea ceremony in a traditional tea room. Surrounding it was a tea garden, a place that evoked in me a sense of the sacred. The works in this series were inspired by the world seen from that tearoom and by the plants growing in the garden around it.
Within the tradition of the tea ceremony, once people enter the tearoom, distinctions of social rank and status are set aside. Roles and positions lose their importance, and everyone meets simply as a human being. In this sense, both Shinto and the tea ceremony create spaces in which people can quietly open themselves with a sense of reverence and clarity.　In such a sacred space, we can momentarily step away from the roles assigned to us in everyday life, return to a more essential sense of ourselves, and become aware of the subtle presence of the world around us.